My expectation for MLS, and I think how it was pitched when it started, is that it will grow the American soccer talent base. Right now, the American talent base in MLS pretty much bites. Besides Jozy, who left the league 10 years ago and came back, what American MLS attacking player could play at a League One team in Britain? How many Americans in MLS, regardless of position, could? Maybe a handful of defensive players? Maybe? By my measure (not measured by SUM making money hand over fist) MLS is an abject failure.
Man, this thread is going to get testy, but fun! I wouldn’t call MLS a failure at US talent development, but I’d say it’s a disappointment. I totally understand the DP rule and having to import foreigners into the league to make it sustainable. Just 10 years ago the league was on shaky ground and attendance was crap, it’s easy to forget that. I’m just disappointed by the allocation order that presents barriers to entry into MLS for a number of Americans, or entry “back” into the league by those that have left. I’m disappointed that teams don’t provide ample opportunities for playing US youth products (the data on it is overwhelmingly bad). I’m disappointed that the league doesn’t realize it’s place in the global game and won’t make it easy to sell youth players on to Europe, should interest be tangible. I am, however, somewhat excited about the influx of young talented foreigners into the league as that means MLS will HAVE to play ball and sell those players on. Barco and Almiron will lose their shit if Milan wants to buy but MLS holds out for an outrageous fee....that should mean, in theory, the league becomes a little more open to selling their talent which will be beneficial for Americans.
Not sure if you're serious. I realize it's a relatively young league. But, the issue is not that it's not producing top level talent. It's that, as of late, it's not producing talent. I ask again (not to be a jerk, but because it's mind-boggling) What Americans in MLS would a League One team be excited to have? How many years ago was Yedlin sold? Anyone been bought since then?
Right..............the league is 20 years old. But fully half of the teams in the league have been created since 2007. Basically half the league is less than 10 years old. The homegrown initiative, and the development academy, have only existed since 2007. Only 10 years old. [And for most clubs their development programs are even younger than that. Most clubs have only recently started U14s and younger.]The relationship with USLPro for reserve teams is only a few years old. The league is investing and investing and investing in these player development programs. Patience........................ We are comparing our league and our development programs to those that have had generations worth of a head start on ours.
People really don't understand how far behind America's soccer talent was in 1996. I was never under the impression anybody really was a world class player. 20 years ago coaches were still teaching kick and run after the ball it's only been the last few years where we have finally seen a change in philosophy. IMO, 15 to 20 years from now our talent will be worth the top European clubs time and energy.
I was hanging in there until this last statement. I'm not doing that. I'm asking what American players in MLS could draw a paycheck in League One. That is very different from comparing the league to other leagues. I'm not making a comparison. Just asking if the league has shown a minimal level of competency at developing players for the MNT. And, I might add, that's my only real interest in the league. If it were, I'd watch. Otherwise, why? Do I have some kind of patriotic duty to watch the domestic league? Not if the domestic league doesn't have some kind of patriotic duty to develop American players. Otherwise, I agree - the recent developments should bare fruit. But, the tree should not be so bare presently.
I get it. Our NT punched wayyyyyyyyy above its weight. And, they kind of benefitted from the playing pool being so small (and the fact that we stayed way more healthy in those days). In those days for any international match, you knew exactly who the 11 starters and 2 guys off the bench were going to be. If we had to go to that 14th player, we were in trouble. The guys knew each others' games as if they were club teammates. I know we had a long way to go. But, I'm asking who is at League One level, for heaven's sake.
Why the hell do you care about League One Level? One of the most unhealthy parts of US Soccer fandom is its obsession with England and their horrid lower-leagues. If you must have an answer: I lived in England for a long time. The bottom half of League One is utter trash. Virtually every USMNT-eligible starter in MLS is League One quality or better. If the standard is Bury and Northampton........................there are NCAA players that could be on those rosters. Wigan and Blackburn at the top of League One is a different story. There's almost no gap between that and the Championship. On my team, FC Dallas, there are three US-eligible players of that caliber today. Acosta, Hedges, and Gonzalez. And there are 3 or 4 homegrown teenagers on the roster that have a chance of getting there. There's an FC Dallas academy player plying his trade in the Championship for QPR right now. Niko Hamaleinen. Nobody's heard of him here, but that's a fact. He chose to represent Finland and not the USMNT. Also, lots of former FCD acaedemy players down in Mexico. And of course..........Weston McKennie and Emerson Hyndman are FCD academy products. Saying you think there aren't League One caliber players in MLS means you don't watch MLS. So the argument isn't worth having. And if you watch MLS and you think that...............then you're not watching League One.
You don't have a duty to do anything. But again, this is one of the challenges MLS faces. In most soccer-oriented countries, people follow their city's team because it's their team. It may be a crappy team that will never win and doesn't produce much in the way of top players, but they want to have a team to follow. In the US, the default is to follow foreign teams and people here find all sorts of reasons to not watch MLS. Which is fine, there's no wrong way to be a fan. But it makes the task of MLS so much harder. If people don't watch the good teams in MLS, how could you ever convince them to watch bad teams? Which in the end, of course, is why pro/rel would never work here. Americans follow winners and pro/rel needs perpetual losers.
It seems that in the past there were a lot more transfers. I believe McBride was sold for just $1.5 million and Dempsey for 4 million and were quickly involved with the clubs they got bought by. You'd think since the league had evolved drastically since then, we might have far more transfers. Maybe the EPL or Bundesliga thinking of finding a nice talent for cheap. Or even the Championship or 2 Bundesliga finding somewhat of a pipeline from MLS.
I think it has been disappointing, not just MLS, but US player development in general. We had the class of Donovan, Beasley, Onyewu, etc. and I think many thought that we were doing something right that would continue and we'd only have more and more top level players. Instead, things have kind of either plateaued or held steady, maybe more run of the mill, middling second tier guys, but high level talent hasn't really improved much. Recent years have finally seen Pulisic break out and McKennie get off to a good start at top level, but other than that? A bunch of meh. So yeah, US player development, both inside and outside of MLS has been pretty underwhelming. That said, I think developing players for the national team is bigger than MLS as many of our very top prospects will head to Europe for their early professional development. And, MLS is about more than developing players for the national team, it is also about creating the best, most financially viable soccer league possible in the US, with each team having their own priority to win as many games as possible and with the whole league needing to fill seats and generate excitement and garner attention. There's lots of overlap between the national team and MLS, but they don't have exactly the same priorities. Anyone expecting them to be perfectly in sync may have unrealistic expectations.
As to the original question, I guess it depends on what you think the point of the league is. If it's about producing top level players, then clearly the US hasn't in large amounts. Maybe that's on MLS, although personally I think there are more important factors. On the other hand, if you think the purpose of MLS is to produce a sustainable professional soccer league in the US, then it has been a wild success. Soccer specific stadiums Free-to-play academies Second-division teams Several generations of professional players who can serve as coaches in their communities or who may end up coaching their own children and developing them that way. But it's going to take time. It will take time for those players to become good coaches, for the system to recognize and promote those who turn out to be good coaches, for the players of those coaches to develop into professionals themselves.
You're moving the goal post. I never said anything about perfectly in sync. I'm just saying what my standard is, and that it is currently failing wildly.
OK, short version, your standard is not MLS's standard. Also, their is no such thing as League One Britain. Britain has several leagues for different countries within it, the English Premier League being the most respected. League One is generally the English language way to refer to the Fench top division.
If my city had a team, I'd follow it. But, I live in OC. It's 2 hours for me to drive to Carson. Not going to do it, to watch guys that predominantly aren't eligible to pay for the NT. If there was a team in Anaheim, I'd follow it and support it. But, that's getting off topic. I'll note that no one has yet answered my test question.
I use Ligue 1 for France and I imagine many others. When you write League One, I instantly think of the English 3rd division.
Big success by my measurement. I did most of my growing up when the only option to watch soccer was a taped, edited European game maybe once a month at best. A stable domestic league with some impressive individual markets is more than I could dream of back then. Still a lot of work to do to get all salaries up, but I love that the better American players now have the option to play in their own country and be paid decently.
I wish the title used the word "disappointment" or a synonym. "Failure" is going to draw trolling. I think MLS' ability to produce workaday American players is not a disappointment. It's subjective, not provable, but that's my subjective opinion. It's easy peasy for MLS to cough up an American at any position good enough to be on the field in the round before the Hex and compete. I do think that MLS' ability to produce a higher level player...let's say, good enough to feature (start or be a key sub) on a team that can make the knockout round of the World Cup...that has been a disappointment. A part of that is because of a particular quartet of players more or less the same age...Danny Szetela (remember him?), Jozy, Adu, and Bradley. At the U-17 World Cup, Szetela and Adu projected to easily hit the level I'm referencing, and they completely washed out. Bradley and Altidore hit that level, but don't transcend it. (Bradley arguably transcended that level from 2010 through 2013, but then something broke him.) The players who should have been and might have been the stars of this last cycle...they underperformed, which made it harder to hide the weaknesses of the non-stars. Another part of my sense of disappointment is more general. Just not enough true quality, too much "tolerable" not enough "exciting." The current U-20 generation seems different. Pulisic and McKennie and even Keaton Parks have already passed the level (the first two by miles) of Adu and Szetela. And there's a lot of talent backing those guys up.
If you don't have a local team in MLS there is no reason for you to watch MLS regardless of the talent level.
I think there's a disconnect between what you want MLS to be and what it is. Developing players for the USMNT is not the central mission of MLS. It's a professional league where teams will try to acquire the best players they can within the rules provided in order to win games. There's certainly room for improvement when it comes to the development of young American players, some of which is cited by other posters above. But their incentive to do that is to secure relatively cheap talent for their team, not to stock the USMNT. From their perspective, that's just a byproduct.
If you're going to get pissy get your facts straight. You screwed up, several times over. I didn't say "League One Britain." I said League One in Britain, which it certainly is. To say otherwise is just idiotic. Secondly, I said "League One in Britain" because either Swansea or Cardiff may find themselves at some point, in League One. (Cardiff and Swansea are in Wales). And If I'd said League One in England, some DB like you would point out that the English/British league system is inclusive of Wales.
Not true. If MLS was developing decent (and by that I mean League One or better) American talent for the NT, I would happily watch. I used to watch. And, it find it kind of weird that you think you can tell me what should motivate me to watch something. Finally, I'm not complaining about the talent level in MLS. I'm complaining about the American talent level.
If the American talent level isn't high enough for you and you have no local connection, what possible reason do you have to watch?
As of now, which players have been the most prominent example of MLS? Like which MLS transfers to Europe would reflect incredibly on our league?
They better get serious about their byproduct. We just failed to qualify for the WC. That's a blow to MLS. The crappier our NT is, the less interest there will be in our league.